What Is RescueTime?

RescueTime is a time management &amp; Productivity software company founded in 2008. The RescueTime app runs in the background of your apparatus measuring tracking and automatically categorizing your own activity.

RescueTime is a free app with a premium update That enables more special reporting and features like moment input that is offline . It delivers a reporting dashboard with all your information sliced, diced and sorted into helpful charts to assist you manage your own time.

RescueTime takes the monitoring of time That you actually track your time so that and makes it automatic and painless — you can be aware of time usage.

Nevertheless, there are dozens and dozens of Improvement &amp; time management tools on the Internet. What are the actual pros &amp; cons of RescueTime? Here’s what I have noticed over the years.

Disclosure — I get referral fees Mentioned on this site. Any data or opinions are all based on my experience as a customer or consultant to a client. Rihanna This Time Please Someone Come And Rescue Me

Rescuing Your Time

To reiterate, RescumeTime is a productivity tool at the Feel that it helps your time-management skills improve. It gathers data about the apps and sites you use, and then generates reports based on that information.

You create an account and install a to Begin Desktop program in your computer(s) and a cell program on Android apparatus ) There’s no iOS app because the operating system prevents RescueTime from amassing the information it needs to carry out its function. Those programs quietly and invisibly monitor which programs you use and which websites you visit, in addition to the quantity of time you spend on them.

The hard nut to crack is how to make sense of all that information. To get the best results, you must customize your accounts from the RescueTime website and tell the program more about what you believe productive versus unproductive action. The more you fine-tune it to your particular circumstances, the better your results. For example, somebody who works in the financing industry may classify reading financial news on sites such as MarketWatch and FT.com as a productivity task, whereas for me, that is an unproductive use of time.

You can categorize every app and site on a 5-point Scale of very effective, effective, impartial, unproductive, and very unproductive. You could also categorize activity into perform categorizes. For example, I list Google Docs as very productive, and that I categorized it as Writing, which is a subcategory of Design and Composition. Looking at Redfin.com is quite distracting when I am trying to function, and I’ve categorized it .

From the desktop app, there is a simple set of controllers That allows you to pause RescueTime for a quarter hour, 1 hour, or till tomorrow, providing you easy access to switching the app off for days or breaks when you wrap up early.

Privacy

When confronted with RescueTime’s proposal –We will track All you do and provide you insights about your habits! –some individuals might, justifiably, be worried about their privacy and the security of information in their own hardware. Should you work with sensitive information on the internet or store sensitive information on your computers and mobile devices, you’ll want to browse RescueTime’s privacy and safety statements carefully.

For everyone else, RescueTime’s privacy policy Includes a summary at the very top, only a couple of stiff lines that are worth studying.

If your concerns are somewhat more relaxed and You Just Don’t Want RescueTime monitoring you on the weekend, you’ve got control over the times and days the app monitors your behaviour. You can easily set it to just watch your activity from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, or whatever schedule suits you.

Reports

I have used RescueTime for decades, and I do not check my Productivity reports. I like to let the service run in the background so that when I do want to find a better picture of how I’ve been spending my own time, a good amount of information is awaiting me.

While I do go through the reports, however, they are Magnificent. I love the variety, providing you get numerous methods of understanding your productivity and habits, from bar graphs and pie charts that show lump sums of action, to line things of applications you employed.

One simple but powerful piece of advice RescueTime Provides is an investigation of when during the daytime you are inclined to be the most productive. I was not surprised to see that my mind peaks in the morning and slacks off after 2:00 p.m., as that matches fairly well with everything I understand about my habits. If you have never analyzed your productivity, nevertheless, that might be a beneficial revelation for you, one which might help you schedule your times more productively.

The longer you use RescueTime Premium, the more applicable the Data becomesbecause you may see your statistics daily, week, month, or year. And as you might expect, you can toggle that times and days RescueTime records your activity so it turns off automatically on weekends, for example. Rihanna This Time Please Someone Come And Rescue Me

Additional Features

Much of the value you get from RescueTime comes in that which You make of this data and the way you use that information to affect your behavior. Changing behaviour is tough, but getting rich insights doesn’t have to be.

One of the manners RescueTime makes it Simple to understand how To interpret all of the data that it collects is using a Productivity Pulse score. This daily score, shown as a percent, comes in calculating the percent of time spent very productive, productive, neutral, unproductive, and very wasteful jobs. To be clear, no one is advocating you target to get a 100 percent Productivity Pulse score.

A RescueTime blog article describing the productivity Score notes that the typical score is 67 percent, and the average is 79 percent. Most people want to do some job that is not considered”very productive” during daily. The entire purpose of using RescueTime is to help you figure out how to concentrate on productive and very productive tasks if you will need to and perhaps save productive tasks for times when your ability to focus was waning anyway.

Tasks are not the Exact Same thing as distractions. RescueTime has a smart and simple feature for controlling behaviour that is unwanted, like getting sucked into sites that are distracting , too. A feature called FocusTime, when enabled, blocks your ability to access. It requires a little setup and customization, but after it’s ready to deploy, it is quite powerful. As an example, let us say you wish to finish a report, and also to make progress on it, you need to concentrate hardcore for the next thirty minutes. It can block you from looking at email, posting on Twitter, checking sports scores, or whatever other websites and actions, and switch on FocusTime you deem deflecting.

The RescueTime mobile app has Automatically silence your phone whenever you empower FocusTime. Likewise, you may set up other automation with the support of third-party providers IFTTTFree at iTunes Store and Zapier to block or silence additional distractions. For example, you can make a rule with IFTTT (it stands for”if this, then that”) that says,”When I empower FocusTime, then mechanically set my Slack standing to active.”

RescueTime also Provides you the Choice Idle time. Any time RescueTime notices the computer has been idle for several minutes at a row, so it pops up a dialog asking if you were at a meeting, on the phone, taking rest, etc, and permits you to categorize the idle time accordingly.

Advantages of RescueTime

Here’s some of the advantages of using RescueTime Over other solutions. Rihanna This Time Please Someone Come And Rescue Me

Feature Set

At its core, RescueTime does something — track time. When you look at it like this, it is not super special. Technically, you could do some of those dozens of apps or that with a spreadsheet on the internet.

But RescueTime’s feature set is special due to How it monitors time and exactly what it does with the information (aka, you you’ll actually use).

Since RescueTime’s tracking feature simplifies that Problem, you’ll have data that is complete, useful & appropriate.

RescueTime’s other attributes focus on making their Core feature better. Like time-tracking &amp; billing for 15, they do not attempt to include on features. They do not try to get into any side companies.

They do have Feature in an intriguing way. The Get Focused! From running when chosen feature blocks distracting sites and/or programs.

They have aims and alarms that Permit You to decide What you want to happen when X happens — and RescueTime will do that based on what it’s tracking.

I also love RescueTime does Offline Time Tracking. Rather than having to search and put in it in 100% manually, then you select a time period that is unlogged and fill in the blank.

You can even customize the buttons to create logging Offline time quick and easy.

It is a minimalist feature but that’s exactly What makes it great. It is well-done, straightforward and easy.

Pricing and Plans

RescueTime provides two tiers of service: Lite (free) and Premium ($9 a month or $72 annually ). Organizations or Firms that want to utilize RescueTime across a group of people pay the same rate as Premium subscribers.

RescueTime Lite offers lots for Somebody Who Has never Tracked her or his period before. The program monitors which websites and applications you use, and how much time spent in or on each of these. You can categorize every program and site you use on a Productive/Unproductive scale, also RescueTime creates a few primary reports showing the best way to spend your own time. Lite members can place weekly objectives, such as”spend X hours per week on productive tasks and fewer than Y moments on unproductive items.” It’s possible to get a report email. For reports, you are confined to some history.

Paying subscribers get everything from the Lite plan, Plus features and reports, such as an infinite report history. Premium comes with alarms you can enable for when you reach goals. You can more correctly log time spent away from the computer, noting whether you were in a meeting, on a telephone call, or simply out to lunch. There is a Get Focused alternative, which permits you to block deflecting websites you set. Rihanna This Time Please Someone Come And Rescue Me

Assessing RescueTime’s cost to that of other apps Needs an open mind because programs do precisely what RescueTime does. Qbserve is one and it charges a level fee of $40.

We can, but look at traditional time-tracking Programs for freelancers who typically contain tools for creating bills. HarvestFree in Harvest is an adequate example. At $12 per person a month for Premium, it costs over RescueTime, but it has a clear return on investment because it helps ensure more accurate charging. How you’ll translate RescueTime’s reports and make better use of your time as a consequence is not as clear.

Another traditional time-tracking program that’s, toggl Popular among freelancers, costs $9 a month, and it gives you clear tools for monitoring time spent on jobs with billing clients’ usual end goal. Toggl doesn’t contain its own invoicing tools, but it has integration options for linking with other invoicing services.

A Couple of apps are nearer to RescueTime in what they have to Offer, such as Slife, even though they have a tendency to have fewer attributes even if they are free (and Slife is).

Either way — RescueTime is a no-brainer pricing-wise. It’s free to use.

And if the features save you just One hour per month it’s paid for itself even if you are simply making US minimum wage.

RescueTime is.

Program Quality

A Frequent problem with monitoring apps of all kinds is That they must be on. The”always on” feature can lead to performance problems on laptops &amp; desktop computers. It can induce battery issues on mobile devices.

But in my own experience, RescueTime induces neither. It’s running on my Windows PC, my Macbook Pro, along with also my Nexus 5x phone from startup. I’ve never tracked any battery or performance problems to the program.

It’s lightweight and well-built.

I enjoy the fact that the app does not demand Heaps of permissions that are ridiculous. It demands access but doesn’t attempt to track location, contacts, emails, or any of those privacy that is typical violating other programs ask for.

It is quick to install and syncs with an online dashboard. It pulls in data from all sources at precisely the period, and crunches the information quickly if you are on the Premium program or from next day on the program.

Reporting

What is the purpose of information if it can’t be interpreted by you Or place it to use? Rihanna This Time Please Someone Come And Rescue Me

RescueTime’s accounts solves this problem — and in Many ways is the entire purpose of working with the program.

RescueTime’s Dashboard uses bar graphs and Pie charts to reveal just what you are (and are not) doing.

You can Choose to receive emails reports Daily, Week or even month.

And best of all, you can dig deep into the Reporting with filters and overlays to find your habits out.

It’s really eye-opening to see the actual amount of Time that each task happens.

When I trying to find a marketing agency in Atlanta — The time tracked to Gchats and Instant Messages was astonishing. It changed my job managers , but also processes not just for me.

Now I’m on my own with no workers — I can see the time I devote to jobs that matter. I can build my entire day around those.

And Simply to reiterate the reports are Built-in into the computer software. The Dashboard is really on my default — and even advanced reports are pre-built.

It’s all seamless, fast and powerful so that you While analyzing your time, Are not ironically wasting time.

Integrations

Among the key selling points of RescueTime is their characteristic set minimalism. They do one thing and they do it well.

That said — most people using their product Have time-based software requirements. Whether it’s project management, billing, staff time tracking or anything your time needs don’t stop with measuring tracking and categorization.

To solve that problem, RescueTime’s applications Integrates with a massive range. They have an open API and guide integrations with applications.

Whether you are Time monitoring into invoicing applications like FreshBooks or even a project manager that needs to collate staff member’s time, RescueTime will likely integrate with this.

Disadvantages of RescueTime

Like any software RescueTime is Nor is it the best fit for everyone. Here is some disadvantages that I’ve noticed through the years. Rihanna This Time Please Someone Come And Rescue Me

Default Get Focused! Groups

In general, RescueTime’s classes are fairly good. Websites like Reddit, Facebook and Twitter are”Very Distracting”…for most people. And for general monitoring, RescueTime’s categories are quick &amp; easy to fix.

But RescueTime’s classes can be off with general News, research websites and distracting sites’ subdomains.

I can not use the Get Focused! Performance for almost any Task which requires research (aka visiting a bunch of different sites ).

Paradoxically, the time I need smart blocking Performance is when I am doing research for a post

There’s a fine line between which is productive and When I am researching, this is distracting. It would be great to use RescueTime, but the categories are not true enough for this to operate.

The Main issue is that the Block Sites function Is not available in reverse (ie, add certain sites to block). I can only add websites to unblock.

And if I am visiting several dozen blocked websites — Adding them becomes time wasting.

If you are looking for an program that will block only Specific distracting sites — RescueTime is not it.

Effectiveness vs. Efficiency

If you do the wrong thing for 18 hours Every Day, Daily with focus that is ideal — you are doing the incorrect thing.

The most important Element in time direction is to Work on the things that are right — the center 20 percent of time input which will generate 80 percent of your outcomes.

And that. RescueTime Can not fix that problem.

In certain ways, in fact, RescueTime can hurt your Attempts by pushing you towards efficient doing over approach, planning and research.

If effectiveness is your core issue, then RescueTime is not for you. It’ll only make matters worse.

Rather, I’d recommend reading a few of them books.

Wrap-up

RescueTime continues to be an invaluable tool for me. It’s not for everybody and has pitfalls and some feature quirks.

Nevertheless, the best thing is perspective. It’s easy to believe you just”work a ton” or are”not addicted to your telephone” or”invest so much time composing” or are”barely ever on Facebook.”

But the data does not lie. And utilizing RescueTime to Get accurate time data on your time will be able to assist you conserve your own time and place your own life in perspective. Rihanna This Time Please Someone Come And Rescue Me